From 2008-2015, the Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction (UPPR) programme supported more than 2,500 poor urban communities in 23 towns and cities across Bangladesh. A UK aid-funded partnership between the Local Government Engineering Department of Bangladesh, UNDP and UN Habitat, the programme’s principle focus was improving infrastructure. However, recognising that poverty is multidimensional in nature, UPPR delivered other complementary interventions, including mobilisation of communities into representative groups, community banking, improved water and sanitation, and improved livelihoods. The primary goal of the project was to lift households in poor urban settlements out of poverty, and it appears to have done this very well.
In mid-2015 I was commissioned by UNDP to undertake a study of the cross-sector partnerships undertaken by UPPR as part of its work. UPPR achieved far more than its stated goals, and it did this in a very interesting way.
For example, women in the community said that they wanted jobs. UPPR management brokered a collaboration between a private-sector training organisation linked to a number of garment factories, and local community groups. Training was provided in the community, meaning that women could be close to their homes. I met a woman who started the training with no skills but is now employed in a garment factory. She said she used to be abused by her husband but now that she brings money into the house this has reduced because the extra income has helped him to feel more respected.
In another town I met a small business owner who approached the local community group because he needed employees. He offered to train women from the community. The owner said he was too busy to look for employees so he got the benefit of the community groups identifying suitable local people. He now employs 30 people, mainly women. The employees said they liked working for the entrepreneur because it is very local and they have no travel costs. The UPPR town manager reflected that this is a very low cost engagement for the programme.
For NGOs, working with UPPR allows them to better target their service delivery. Patients from the community identified as the “extreme poor” get services at a reduced price. In some cases this can drive up attendance and improve the financial performance of the NGO, but even when it doesn’t, the collaboration still helps the NGO meet its targets for these recipients.
Cross-sector partnerships are a natural way of working when a programme is prepared to take a networked approach to its work, as UPPR has. Working collaboratively with local organisations requires flexibility, give and take, and even opportunism.
One of the most important conclusions of the report is that UPPR played the role of a broker. A more traditional way for UPPR to have addressed service delivery would have been for the programme to set up transactional agreements with suitable providers. However UPPR’s decision to facilitate service delivery and to not be an active partner itself was the one that opened the door to the brokering role. This in turn led to the potentially high sustainability of many of the services being delivered by partner organisations.
My conclusion is that the approach to partnership that UPPR has taken should be extended and strengthened in other poverty programmes. Serving as a broker of cross-sector partnerships, and accessing the tools and approaches that are being developed to support this way of working should lead to an even greater and more sustainable impact for communities.
I don’t know about you, but occasionally I come across examples that I feel compelled to share with as many people as I can. This is definitely one such example. To me, it is a fantastic example of “doing development differently” . The approach was responsive to people’s needs, flexible, adaptive and promoted efficiency in the use of development funds. It is a concept that needs to be discussed and copied. With UNDP’s kind permission I have written a paper about UPPR’s partnership, which has been published by the Partnership Broker’s Association on their website. Please do read it and share it – it will help us all to meet the ambition captured by the SDGs.
The report for UNDP on which this paper is based can be found at the UPPR website.
For further information, I can be contacted at: tomharrison@partnerfordevelopment.eu
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